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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  July 22, 2019 10:00pm-11:00pm PDT

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vewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? chris cuomo is off tonight. welcome to a special edition "360." we were devoting the hour to an upcoming testimony of robert mueller. tonight the justice department sent him a letter laying out guidelines for his testimony, including a reminder not to go beyond what's in his report. first, why what happens on wednesday may be so significant starting with something that may be overlooked. not everyone has read the
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report. the vast majority of people have not, which has allowed the president to put his spin on it. the evidence we obtained about the president's actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred, which is a far cry from what the president and others have been saying and saying repeatedly. >> we had no collusion, no obstruction, we had no nothing. we had a total no collusion finding. it said no collusion. the attorney general was easily able to find there was no obstruction. >> we begin with some of what the mueller report has to say about as many as ten instances
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of possible obstruction of justice, including some in which the president asked his aides to take action that would have impeded the investigation, quoting from page 4, volume 2 about his order to then white house counsel don mcgahn. >> on june 17, 2019, the president call mcgahn at home and directed him to call the acting attorney general and say that the special counsel had conflicts interest and must be removed. the special counsel did not have conflicts of interests. the president asked don mcgann to lie about the lie, quoting, in early 2018 the press reported that the president directed mcgahn to have the special counsel removed in june 2017 and that mcgahn had threatened to
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resign rather than carry out the order. it continues, "the president reacted by stating a record saying he had not been ordered to have the special counsel removed." mcgahn told officials the media reports were accurate in stating that the president had directed mcgahn to have the special counsel removed. the president then met with mcgahn and again pressured him to deny the reports. that's just some of what the mueller reports has about the no obstruction claim. our jessica schneider joins us now. so mueller requested this guidance from the department of justice? >> it's actually the first thing referenced in this letter to robert mueller, that mueller
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requested this guidance about what he can and can't say during his testimony on wednesday. really the letter lays it out in very strict terms saying any testimony must remain within the bounds of the public report that mueller cannot refer to any redacted material from the report, references like grand jury material or other ongoing investigations, and crucially, mueller must not discuss the conduct of any uncharged third parties. anderson, that right there will likely severely hinder democrats' plan to hammer home the question would donald trump be charged with obstruction if he were not the president since really by the terms of this letter, mueller will not be able to talk about any uncharged third parties here. >> and in terms of any kind of an opening statement from mueller, do we know if the department of justice gets a copy of that beforehand? >> i'm told no one at d.o.j. will see mueller's report before it's delivered. it will be under wraps until the hearing begins on wednesday
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morning. so the attorney general won't be able to weigh in on it. given this strict guidance coming from the justice department tonight in that page and a half e-mail, it is very possible that mueller's opening testimony could really just be a rehash of the public statement we got from him on may 29th when he seemed to really just lay out the bullet points of his report. so democrats fear he might not say much more. it could be pretty founded here. >> that would make sense. what else do we know about how mueller's been preparing for wednesday? >> he's been preparing diligently. i'm told mueller has been prepping with members of his team, a small group from the special counsel's office who he worked closely with for the past two years. they've been meeting recently at an office at wilmer hale's, a law office here in washington. i asked if he could talk about the questions that mueller's been preparing for and the
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spokesman said he wouldn't give any content, wouldn't give any details on the content of what mueller will say and only that mueller will in fact stick to what was in his report. i also asked the frame of mind of robert mueller heading into these hearings and his spokesman wouldn't comment on that either only saying that given mueller's long career and reputation for being prepared, he will be ready for wednesday. >> appreciate it. with us legal analyst jeffrey toobin. anne is the former attorney general of the state of new jersey. jeff, do you agree with the department of justice that mueller has to stick to essentially everything addressed in the report? >> a little bit. i think it is true that there are certain iron-clad things he cannot disclose. he cannot disclose grand jury material. but as a private citizen who
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used to work in the government, and remember that's what mueller is at that point, i this -- think he has a certain degree of freedom to talk about the nature of his work in a somewhat broader sense. >> but do you believe he would answer -- there have been a lot of congressional democrats on television saying of course what we want to know is if it wasn't for the office of legal counsel's ruling, would he have brought charges on obstruction and it doesn't seem like he'll answer that. >> i don't think he will answer that. and that is, i think, somewhat unfair. he talked about in his report that because of the rule that says presidents can't be indicted, it would be unfair to say the president should be indicted because there would be no forum for him to respond. so i think he's going to stick
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to that position having laid out that position. >> why would the d.o.j. says that mueller asked for this guidance, why would he ask for the guidance? does it give him cover in terms of how he answers? >> maybe. just to have it be very clear when he sits there tomorrow and says repeatedly i'm going to refer you to my report that he's staying within the confines he expected to stay within. i agree with jeff. he's never going to say the president would be indicted. it's just not mueller and it not what he's written in the report. i don't think that was ever on the table. this may be more about making sure that he does go even outside of the strict parameters that mueller himself would already have. >> basically it seems like a democratic strategy. he claims it's not going to be a lot of people making public statements and a lot of members of congress giving long, rambling opening statements, which they often do. remains to be seen of course. it does seem like they're going to be focusing on five main areas of possible obstruction. >> i think that's true. the staff has certainly been
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trying to guide them that way, to have almost rehearsal sessions with him. but i'd like to add a footnote about what has been said about the letter that now restricts him. if you look at the enough regulations of the department that came out during the trump administration, it's now call the justice manual, first of all, a former employee who is subpoenaed as mueller asked to be in this case, is considered under these regulations and those regulations indeed restrict what he can say. so it almost looks like a setup, to me, that he asked for this subpoena. >> how do you mean a setup? >> he asked for the subpoena that would force him under the regulations of the department, even though he's now a private citizen. >> so if he wasn't under the regulations of the defendant and a private citizen, he could say whatever he wanted to say? >> well, i think -- there's no enforcement device with these regulations. i don't know what the department would do with a former employee who went ahead and did something in direct violation of those. obviously he's not going to go into grand jury testimony. there are sanctions on that. but a lot of these are just policy positions of the
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department. >> but, shannon, he's certainly a reluctant witness. it not as if he's dying to do this. he clearly doesn't want to be there. >> that's probably why he wanted to be subpoenaed so he could rely on that to restrict what he testifies to more. i do think, though, there is still plenty of room for him to make some things crystal clear and one of the things i hope comes out of this is that unquestionably the special counsel's office chose to abide by the department of regulation on not charging a sitting president. i think there's been a lot of spin about that issue as though there was a substantive reason not to charge the president, but that should come out crystal clear, they felt they could not do that. >> but even at a more basic level, we who are in this world are very familiar with the facts of the mueller report. most people are not. and the story you just told about the president telling don
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mcgahn to fire mueller and then telling don mcgahn to lie about firing -- >> and create a fake record of it. >> most people don't know that. if mueller were to tell that story, which of course in his report, to the american public in a setting where a lot of people are paying attention for the first time, that may have some impact. in -- i don't think the polls will change but as a matter for the historical record and a matter of what special counsel should do, that's important for the public to hear. there's no legal ambiguity about his ability to tell that story. >> i have to take a quick break. we're going to have more coming up from everybody, including their take on what, if anything, democrats might be able to extract from mueller when it comes to obstruction of justice. and later, focusing on the other part of the mueller report, russian interference in the 2016 election, why the president keeps insisting there's no collusion there. was the easiest decision ever. i switched to geico and saved hundreds.
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expect when mueller testifies on capitol hill on wednesday. john dean, i heard you say or i saw you wrote that if mueller had been the prosecutor during the watergate hearings, the prosecutor during the watergate case, nixon would have gotten away with it. >> that's right. i shared that with your office. >> can you explain that? >> it's simple. i waited until i was sure that archibald cox was going to go after the tapes to decide what i was going to do with my own situation. i had been immunized by senate, rather massive immunity, i also had informal immunity from the prosecutors. my lawyers said, john, you can't be prosecuted at this stage unless you want to be or unless you plead. i said, charlie, if i go after the tapes, it's going to change everything. so three days before cox, while i was told about this, was going
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to be fired, i agreed to plea. knowing he was going to be fired. because i was so convinced he had taken it so far, they would never back off that. >> so you don't think mueller would have gone after the tapes? >> given mueller's performance and the way he let trump not appear under oath, not formally interview him, not in front of a grand jury, that's a sign to me he wasn't being very aggressive, whereas cox was very aggressive. and he was appointed under the same general authority that mueller was appointed under. >> jeff, do you agree that he wasn't aggressive? >> well, i mean, i think that the question of why he didn't subpoena the president is the one that really hovers over this whole investigation because, look, everybody knows that the president lies all the time. and if he had the opportunity to question him under oath, he would have lied and created all sorts of problems.
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in the report he has an extensive section explaining why he didn't subpoena the president and he basically said the litigation over it would have taken so long that it just would have held up the investigation too long. whether that's true, i don't know. history's judgment on mueller will rest significantly on his decision not to force a confrontation over that testimony. >> i agree with jeff very much on this. i think the other thing is he said he felt he had sufficient evidence to assess the facts which leads completely to the conclusion in my view he thought he had sufficient evidence to show obstruction of justice. >> one section of the report that the democrats plan to focus on is the president trying to get his former campaign manager, corey lewandowski, to influence the attorney general. this is one of those moments i
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think a lot of people haven't really focused on. this is from the mueller report. "on june 19, 2017 the president met one on one in the oval office with his former campaign manager corey lewandowski, a trusted adviser outside the government and dictated a message for lewinsky to deliver to sessions, jeff sessions, the attorney general. the message said that sessions should publicly announce that notwithstanding his recusal from the investigation was very unfair to the president, the president had done nothing wrong and sessions planned to meet with the special counsel and let him move forward to investigate election meddling for future elections. the president asked about his status for the messaging for sessions to limit the special counsel's investigation to future election interference, corey lewandowski did not want to deliver the message personally.
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he asked rick dearborn to deliver the message and dearborn was uncomfortable the task and did not follow through. >> this is like the -- >> it's an example of corey lewandowski and neither of them wanting to get near with with a ten-foot poll. >> this is a great opportunity if you can get mueller to explain the fact that just because the president has the power to do these things does not mean his motives are corrupt. >> if mueller is asked did he agree with attorney general barr's conclusion there was no obstruction, how does he answer that?
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>> that's a tough one. he certainly will be asked that. i think he will just refer to the report and say that we could not exonerate the president from obstruction of justice but we can't conclude that he did either. do you agree? i think that's a -- it's a good question. i don't know what the answer is. >> i think it's a great question and we would all love for mueller to answer it. i'm inclined to think jeff is right. that be said, he did put in writing to attorney general barr that the summary that barr said was not a summary was not a full and accurate and fair representation of hits report. if congress does a good job, there's no guarantee the questioning will be as good as it should be, there is an avenue to explore some of that. >> the corey lewandowski case is an endeavor, that even if you don't complete the crime, that itself is a crime, the endeavor.
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we've been talking largely about obstruction of justice so far tonight as detailed in volume two of the mueller report. now volume one makes it clear that collusion is not a federal crime, nor such is coordination even with a hostile foreign power. the crime is conspiracy. the report states there is insufficient evidence to bring
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charges on that. however, even as it does, the facts laid out in the report are not flattering. i'm quoting, "the investigation also identified numerous links between the russian government and the trump campaign. although the investigation established that the russian government perceived it would benefit from a trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities." no chargeable conspiracy, plenty of behavior that's never been seen in an election before, including a president calling on russian intelligence to be used that had been hacked by the other side.
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>> wikileaks. i love wikileaks. this wikileaks is unbelievable. wikileaks is fascinating. this wikileaks is like a treasure trove. >> quote, beginning in june 2016, forecast to senior campaign officials that wikileaks would release information damaging to clinton. wikileaks's first release came in july 2016, around the same time candidate trump announced he hoped russia would recover e-mails described as missing from a private server used by clinton when she was secretary of state. he later said he was speaking sarcastically. to be fair, this comes as close to exoneration of the president as anything else in the report. >> and you can expect that the republicans when they have the opportunity to question mueller, as they of course will, they will repeatedly go to this subject and say you did not find any criminal conspiracy involving the russians and the
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trump campaign. and they have every right to do that. so can you expect that when they have their turn to ask questions, that will be a major focus. >> and i want to read part of the report that kind of leaves the door open basically that the special counsel may not have been able to find everything on any collusion. it says, quote, further the office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated, including some associated with the trump campaign, deleted relevant materials. accordingly while this recorded body's factual and legal determinations that the office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on or cast in a new light events described in the reports.
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the investigators couldn't eliminate the possibility that the deleted information would actually reveal more. >> i think it's very important and hopefully mueller will be asked about this, there is a specific reference to text messages between eric prince and steve bannon that were not accessible by the special counsel and they were coordinating a meeting involving the russians there are a lot of pieces that it's very clear both lack of cooperation by individuals and missing information and i hope that they go through this with mueller. again, i don't think he'll go so far beyond the report but it's a really important piece that mueller didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle and add to the fact that you're dealing with a foreign government and it difficult to get information from abroad, it made it difficult for mueller to do this piece of the investigation. >> even the fact they noted that in the report i find surprising because he's such a buttoned down type of writer, it almost invites speculation. to me it signals at the think
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there was a lot of smoke around this issue, they were very suspicious and that's why they noted that surprising fact. >> the president himself refused to give any answers in this area at all. he only would address the obstruction. >> no written answers on obstruction of justice. i want to read another portion of the report, about the campaign's involvement, i'm quoting, the presidential campaign of donald trump showed interest in wikileaks' release of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate clinton, although the investigation established that the russian government perceived it would benefit from a trump presidency, investigations did not establish members of. campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in interference in election activities. this is something the president will point to during the testimony.
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>> it is one of the most remarkable stories of the 2016 campaign, that you have this very explicit effort by the russians to steal e-mails, use social media, to help donald trump get elected. you have the trump campaign knowing that wikileaks is using these hacked e-mails, encouraging that publicly and you don't have a nexus between the two. and that's an exoneration of sorts. >> i guess it was george stephanopoulos asking about opposition from a foreign government if he said he'd do it again, he said he essentially would and maybe, maybe not what call the fbi depending on how bad it was. >> that's an astounding thing for him to say. everyone said this before, why the campaign would be so open to that. i think one thing that can
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happen during this testimony is to, again, tell that story in a very plain fashion that they were so open and inviting to this type of action, which is so wrong. >> and what about the infamous june 2016 meeting in trump tower where the famous e-mail says this is part of the russian government's attempt -- efforts to help your father get elected president. and then the four top officials from the campaign go to this meeting. i mean, it is an incredibly inappropriate and probably criminal enterprise that is starting there. now, fortunately, the meeting didn't yield anything, fortunately for the trump campaign. >> we don't know. for example, when they gave them
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polling results, we don't know what they did with those polling results. they may well have affected how that social media was projected and targeted. >> there's no evidence that they can find that president trump or then candidate trump was informed about that meeting in advance or informed that the russian government was supporting his campaign, although again, i just find it hard to believe that, you know, donny jr. gets the information that the russian government is supporting his father's campaign and top officials show up at the meeting and nobody mentions that to the candidate? >> and at the time that meeting is set up, the president -- the candidate trump announces i'm going to give a big speech about the terrible things that hillary clinton has done and when the meeting turns out to be a bust, the speech never takes place. >> i think it's important on this, too. i don't fully agree with mueller's analysis they just didn't know what they were doing or what the law is. there's a little leeway he gives don jr. and others in the meeting that many prosecutors wouldn't give them. the russian interference is such a critical piece of this and i hope very much it doesn't get lost. there's no question about that. >> this is going to be dealt with mostly in the intelligence
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committee hearing. the judiciary committee will handle obstruction of justice issues and justice will do the collusion. >> criminal conspiracy, that's an area where republicans could get themselves into trouble. if they don't use that phrase, they have to be very specific. that's what was not found. but if they blunder into these statements wanting mueller to say absolutely zero evidence, the report says plain as day multiple links. >> more to say about president trump's claim that robert mueller exonerated him. we'll be right back. can my side be firm? and my side super soft? with the sleep number 360 smart bed you can both adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. so, can it help us fall asleep faster? yes, by gently warming your feet. but can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. will it help me keep up with him? yup. so, i'll wake up ready for anything? oh, we've got your back. so, you can really promise better sleep?
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the president would have us believe that robert mueller's testimony wednesday will be totally and completely anti-climactic, that there's nothing to learn, nothing to see, saying robert mueller exonerated him completely. >> there was no collusion with russia, there was no obstruction and none whatsoever, and it was a complete and total exoneration. >> total exoneration, complete vindication. >> it was a hoax.
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it was a witch hunt. so this comes back and it comes back totally exonerating donald trump and a lot of other people. >> well, he said in tweets, he said at rallies and during policy discussions and in the first person as well as the third. keeping him honest, there is one problem with the president's own testimony, it not the case, not at all. not for a second. it's not even something that was true for a day and then had to be corrected. it's been false since the day the report was released. i quote from the report "while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." does not, does not, does not exonerate him. just to repeat, it does not exonerate him. if you look at the sourcing, this quote does not appear just one team, it appears on pages 2,
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8 and 128. that is three times mueller says it doesn't exonerate him. one month after the release, the former special counsel said something similar during a brief public appearance at the justice department. >> if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. >> once again, not exoneration. when robert mueller says he and his team definitely could have exonerated you and would have if the situation were warranted, could have said that but didn't, then you're not exonerated. back with our legal team. the democrats certainly are going to just try to focus on that as much as possible and get him to say over and over again he's not exonerated. >> without question. there are a couple of places like the example where you just gave that trump has said things about the report that are simply false, if not true, as well as even barr, the attorney general. the democrats should go through methodically many of those
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misrepresentations and mueller, even if he just repeats exactly what he just said, we did not exonerate him, it's important to be on record that what the president said is not accurate and he was not exonerated. >> if the democrats are basically using the president's words and have mueller refute them directly. the president -- mr. mueller, the president said you exonerated him. that's not -- >> he could do that just based on repeating information in the report, staying right within the report. the president and attorney general have misrepresented and distorted the report. so people are going to get for the first time on wednesday a lot of things they've not heard. >> if somebody asks mueller then is that a distortion or are they misrepresenting, what does he -- >> i think that's the danger. mueller's old prosecutor, very used to direct exam-style questions. that's the best way to elicit information from him. anything that sounds to him like
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it's leading or they want him to comment, he's going to stiff arm that entirely. they need to build their case by getting him to do the who, what, where and how type questions, get him to regurgitate what's in the report. i think for the republicans, they got to score some points. they need to cross-examination him, leading questions, make him draw conclusions. that's going to be hard for them. that's a tough road with robert mueller. >> this is an important point, though, which is that even with any witness, robert mueller or anyone else, they generally don't often agree with conclusions, they agree with facts. so to the extent that congress when they ask questions can basically be very specific about the facts they're asking mueller in the report, they'll go a lot farther than trying to get him to draw conclusions, which i just don't think he'll do. >> just to put it concretely, he will say the report did not exonerate the president. he will not say the president is lying about the exoneration. i think he will rely on, you know, all the rest of us to make that point. >> he's not looking to make
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dramatic headlines through his own statements. >> he didn't want to be there in the first place. so i think, you know, the question i have is even how much he will repeat what's in the report as opposed to just refer to the report. i mean, if he really wanted to be a difficult witness, he could simply answer questions by saying, you know, the answer to that question is in the report. now, i assume he will not be that unresponsive, but given the parameters, he could really, you know, embarrass the democrats if he does that. >> and then they're trying to get him to -- force him to read his own report, which doesn't look great either. >> that would be pretty bad. >> but, shan, your point is what's critical is the message that he tells is that he was operating under department of justice guidelines and was therefore unable and did not even entertain prosecuting a
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sitting president. >> absolutely. i think that's clearly stated in the report but it is rather dense and if they can translate that into plain english, which is you could not charge him, you weren't allowed to do that, if that could come out, that would be very helpful because it would undercut the whole spin the reason there was no obstruction charge is because there was no crime. the report says contrary to what the president's team says, you can obstruct justice even in plain view, doing things presidents are allowed to do like dangling pardons and stuff like that, it can be obstruction and they can make it plain that could happen. >> do you think this moves the needle at all after he's testified? it doesn't seem like he will. >> i sort of agree with what other folks have said. i think it's incredibly important to have this conversation nationally. it's a very long report. even for the areas where it's not a crime in my view, the president did things that the president shouldn't do and be engaged in. there are a lot of important issues here. i hope people pay attention and
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listen. >> thank you. the 2020 democratic presidential contenders are difficult described on impeachment. will mueller's appearance before congress change that as democratic candidates get ready for their next debate? we'll discuss whether mueller helps or hurts the democrats' case to voters next. at t-mobile, for $40/line for four lines, it's all included for the whole family, starting with unlimited data. use as much as you want, when you want. and if you like netflix, it's included on us. plus no surprises on your bill. taxes and fees are included. and now for a limited time, with each new line, get one of our latest smartphones included. that's right, only $40/line for four lines and smartphones are included for the whole family.
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when robert mueller testifies on wednesday, it could be the last time we ever hear him comment on his 448-page report and anything related to it. but it could reshape next week's democratic debates here on cnn. when it combs to the impeachment question, they're seeing hesitance from some in their party on capitol hill. another democratic ramped up pressure for action. >> in is a president who has violated the laws six ways from sunday. if anyone else had been accused of what the report finds the president had done, they would have been indicted. the report presents very substantial evidence that the president is guilty of high
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crimes and misdemeanors and we have to present or let mueller present those facts to the american people and see where we go from there. the administration must be held accountable. no president can be against the law. >> governor dean, do you think it is wise -- do you think that these impeachment hearings will substantially shift public opinion? >> i don't know. we don't know what he's going to say. i am happy with the pace of what's going on here. >> why? >> because i think we have to build a case and we are building the case and i don't think it's a bad thing that the party is split over this. it's building the case. you can't impeach somebody unless the public thinks there is case to be made. >> is it -- do you feel like this is the right timing? it does feel like it's coming late in the process. >> you can't control the timing. what is the evidence and public reaction to the evidence? more and more people believe donald trump is racist. he is racist. that case has to be made to the
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american people so they don't think we're doing the things republicans have been doing and stealing elections. >> we don't know exactly what he'll do. if all he does is essentially read what's in the report and doesn't go further, is there power in that? >> there's some pow. but not enough. most americans haven't cracked the cover of the report. they heard us talking about. it's at a remove. they have skepticism about that. if he speaks if very crisp sounds bites about what he's found. if you read the report, it's a searing indictment of the president's actions. if he can turn that into capsules that are digestible. some people will be hearing for the first time in a sense what happened. i'm worried about the pace as the governor is.
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it takes time and all that. so many americans are like why are we still talking about this. why is this going on. by the duration of it it feels like excessive to them. i don't think it is. it comes across and americans have tuned out. the attorney general did enormous damage when right out of the gate when people were paying attention he spun it this in a manner flattering to the president. i don't think the damage will be entirely undone. >> we reported last week internal polling by democrats show the most forceful message against trump is he's ineffective on infrastructure and jobs and not impeachment and race. >> i don't believe we should fight on the election on impeachment and race. i think it's really clear to make donald trump unacceptable for decent people to vote for. there's an interesting piece by a guy involved in fighting david duke for senator and governor in louisiana and believed
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identifying hem as a racist out of the gate was important. we have to do that. the group of people that wants to send them back and all that crap that doesn't represent the majority of the american people. we have to identify him. we have to pivot. we're not going to win the election because he's a racist. we'll win it because he is incompetent and we have ideas the american people like. for example medicare for all. assuming yo don't take away insurance. >> we had tom free man on and he wrote a column in which he was saying essentially this is not the time for a revolution by the democrats. just get somebody who can beat trump and figure it out. there's people turned off by the idea having the private health insurance taken away. >> i agree. on this entirely. democrats win if they spend less
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time talking about the america donald trump wants to destroy and the more about the america they want to create. that's the danger. he is so expert the president at saying and doing outlandish things that make everybody stop in their tracks and react. if you're reacting to him, you're never getting your own message out. that's the real danger. the trap the democrats are in. >> that's correct. i agree with every word. >> it's one of the dangers -- difficulties in reporting. do you focus on every statement that's not true because then you just wind occupy -- after a while people shut it out. >> he's a reality tv star. it has to be about trump. many i advice has been talk about trump for a moment. and then pivot. pivot to what we're good at. healthcare. he's terrible at healthcare. we're good at education. he's terrible. we're actually good at creating
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jobs. he's not been unable to create jobs. essentially for working people. the people that voted for him. these are why people elect presidents. >> here's an idea. don't talk about him at all. it's cheeky and silly. really imagine what would happen if the democratic nominee decided i'm spending zero time talking about him. he's a distraction. he's noise and destructive. it would drive this person a glutton for attention insane. he would go nuts. more so. and it might be the best strategy in the world. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. including more just ahead the latest protest in puerto rico. demanding the resignation of the governor. a lot of people in the streets. we have more ahead. that's some great paint. ♪ that's some great paint. ♪
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hundreds of thousands of people filled streets of the puerto rico today demanding the resignation of the governor. demonstrators accuse him of corruption. hundreds of pages of leaked chat messages between the governor and members of his inner circle.
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according to a university professor quote offended almost every group on the island. president trump chimed in saying today he is a quote terrible governor. on facebook yesterday the governor said he wouldn't run for reelection and acknowledged what he called a huge portion of the population is unhappy. he didn't say he would step down. as you see that didn't think to stop the protest. which continues. the news continues as well. "cnn tonight." this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. the president was really on a tear today. doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on his attacks opt four congresswomen of color. >> i think they're very bad for the country. i really think they must hate our country. >> he claims those congrewon,